


Yamabuki Moca

by hatokii



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: And hey maybe she does, F/F, One Shot, Saaya thinks Moca wants to marry her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 14:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15293574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatokii/pseuds/hatokii
Summary: "Saaya, you're the best! I want to be a Yamabuki too!"A normal interaction with her friend becomes a hot mess as Saaya struggles to figure out just exactly what Moca means by wanting to join her family.





	Yamabuki Moca

**Author's Note:**

> I have not written a fic in three years, how does this work again??

“Hello, is Saaya in today?”

Saaya Looking up from the box she was lifting in the back of the shop, Saaya’s ears perked up at the sound of that familiar, lilting voice. She craned her head around the corner to see Moca waving nonchalantly at Saaya’s father behind the counter. Before he could engage Moca properly, Saaya carefully placed the box down, and hustled out to join them.

“Moca, hey, it’s rare for you to ask for me. What’s up?” Saaya stepped behind the counter beside her father and waved a hand to him to signal, ‘I’ve got it from here’. He nodded and disappeared into the back.

It was early on Sunday morning. The bakery had only just flipped over its open sign so the shop was still empty. The shopping district wouldn’t get properly busy for another hour or so and it was this lull that Saaya’s family relied on in order to take care of deliveries and other errands before they were proverbially chained to the shop floor. They had just begun to replenish the stock on the shelves, succeeding in suffusing the entire shop with the smell of freshly baked bread. At school, Saaya’s classmates would comment on how Saaya smelled like a walking bakery, but if she were to be honest with them, Saaya was so used to it that she didn’t notice anymore. Despite how decidedly nonplussed Saaya was by that warm, welcoming scent that clung to her clothes and her hair wherever she went, comments like this still managed to make her face flush. 

“I wanted to see you,” Moca sang merrily, leaning forwards to rest her elbows on the counter. She was looking up at Saaya with a sleepy smile that Saaya resolutely decided was very cute. “How’s it going?”

Saaya laughed. “That’s really all you wanted? Well, I’m flattered. It’s going ok, just getting some errands out of the way before the day gets going. What about you? Why are you up so early on a Sunday? I thought for sure you’d be having a lie-in, today of all days.”

“Ah, you’re right, usually I would. Afterglow has practice this morning though so I had to be up bright and early,” Moca yawned. “I’m so sleepy though.”

“Morning practice, huh? That sounds like a nice idea. I’d love to try it with Popipa someday but there’s no way Kasumi would get up in time for it.”

“She really does seem like that type. I’m probably the biggest threat to our practices if I think about it, but here I am, up and ready to go. I bet Hiichan’s gonna take my place today and oversleep instead.” Moca cocked her head to one side, looking up thoughtfully. “Actually, Ran might too.”

“What time does rehearsal start?” Saaya asked, trying to hold Moca’s wavering attention. 

“We start at ten so I’m killing some time before I have to go. I wasn’t sure what to do when it hit me, ‘Ah, I haven’t seen Saaya in a while’, so here I am. Whenever I come by lately you’re never here. I was feeling lonely, you know.” 

Saaya’s heart skipped a beat. She was used to Kasumi or Tae saying stuff like that to her, but it was the first time she had heard something like that from a person outside of Popipa. Not that her friends didn’t say stuff like that to her, they definitely did. And it wasn’t like Moca wasn’t a friend. She was, but it was somewhat different hearing those words in Moca’s sing-song voice; the way each syllable danced over her soft lips that were at that moment pulled into the world’s cutest pout.

Saaya laughed nervously. “Sorry Moca, between rehearsals and upcoming exams I haven’t been able to help out around the shop as much. You could always just call me if you wanted to talk though.”

Moca stared at Saaya in silence. An uncomfortable pause ensued and Saaya tried to escape Moca’s piercing gaze by kneeling to grab something from under the counter. As she was fiddling around, looking for something to justify her escape, Moca’s voice drifted over her once more.

“What, I can do that? I can just call you if I want to talk? Yay!” Moca drew out the last word until it became a sonorous buzz. Despite still talking in the playful tone of voice that was her trademark, Saaya thought that Moca sounded genuinely happy. “I’m going to start calling you every day now.”

Saaya grabbed a notepad and pen sitting in one corner of the shelf under the counter and re-emerged to Moca’s smiling face leaning half-way across the countertop. She was far too close. Moca had really stretched herself out, monopolising the space in front of Saaya with her lithe and wiry body. Saaya stepped back in surprise and almost tripped. Her hands shot out quickly to grab the counter. Saaya didn’t fall, but her stumble had brought Moca even further across the counter. Her feet must have left the floor by that point, Saaya thought.

“Saaya, are you okay?” Moca asked, her eyebrows drawn together in concern. “Have you had breakfast yet? It’s the most important meal of the day, you know. You can’t work hard on an empty stomach!”

“I don’t think I’ve had the chance yet, maybe I’ll slip something in quickly now.” Saaya was grateful for this excuse provided to her to escape the situation momentarily. She cast her eyes to the back of the shop. “Can you wait here a second? I’ll be right back.”

Moca looked at Saaya curiously as she escaped from the shop floor. Saaya picked her way in-between boxes and her younger siblings’ misplaced toys to find her father standing in front of the oven. He looked up and smiled as Saaya walked in.

“How’s your friend doing?” He asked.

“Great. Dad, actually, I was wondering if I could ask a favour. Do we have any bread from this morning that we’re not able to sell?” Saaya gripped her hands tightly behind her back. “I wanted to give something to Moca…”

“We do have a few curry buns that got a little bit burnt. Usually I don’t like to do this but that friend of yours is one of our most loyal customers, so I’m sure it won’t hurt.” He fished out two buns and wrapped them up in a piece of tissues. The buns had cooled considerably since their time in the oven but the rustic smell of baking pastry still clung to the surface. Saaya clenched her fingers around the tops of them, indenting the crust with little concave circles. She was feeling very warm all of the sudden. It must be because of the ovens…

“Thanks, Dad!” Saaya leaned forwards and planted a kiss on her father’s cheek before skipping back towards the front. Just before wandering out again, Saaya took a moment to collect herself.

It might be because she was hungry, or maybe because it was early, but for some reason Saaya was feeling dizzy. Not dizzy in the sense that the room was spinning, about to fall from beneath her feet; but more dizzy in the sense that her extremities were all tingling blissfully and she felt as though she were moving in slow-motion. She took a few calming breaths like she did before each performance with her band, thinking about the feeling of the drum sticks between her fingers and the steadily pulsing energy flowing up from the crowd. She imagined the silence that seemed to envelope her just before she took her seat behind her kit, and about how the crowds would cheer their name…

“Saaya, Saaya, hurry back, Saaya.”

The crowds had manifested in the bakery. They were cheering for her, except it wasn’t a crowd, it was instead Moca, humming along in the shop, singing Saaya’s name. All her attempts to calm down were decimated and Saaya had no choice but to stumble her way back to her position behind the service counter. The counter felt like a barracks; the last hold before enemy lines. Any moment now there would be another assault. Saaya wasn’t sure her heart could handle it.

One more deep breath and Saaya placed the curry buns onto the counter, waving at them to get Moca’s attention.

“You were in luck. We had a couple of curry buns to get rid o-“

Before Saaya could finish her sentence Moca erupted into a monologue of joy. She was bouncing up and down behind the counter, her smile dripping the kind of happiness that appears to be teetering on ecstasy. Moca stopped bouncing to lean over the counter and grab Saaya’s hands. Cradling Saaya’s shaking fingers in her own, Moca swung there hands together in slow-motion.

“Saaya, you’re the best Saaya! I wish I could be a Yamabuki too!”

A Yamabuki too? What did that mean?

Moca was still talking to Saaya but the words were filtering back to her strangely. It was as though Moca’s voice had been distorted. Suddenly the lilting, sing-song tone that Saaya was so fond of had been rendered flat and incomprehensible. Moca’s lips were still moving but Saaya couldn’t hear anything that was being said. She stared at Moca’s hands joined in her own and desperately fiddled with the settings to try and get the sound back to normal. She had to be careful; if she pitched too far one way or the other the resulting feedback might send Saaya crumbling to the ground.

As Saaya was trying to work herself out of the labyrinth Moca had constructed in the margins of one short sentence, the shop bell rang and another customer came in. Always the consummate professional Saaya snapped to attention to greet them. Moca was reaching forwards to grab one of the curry buns, squishing it with her small fingers as though trying to get a feel for its consistency. Saaya noted that Moca dented the bread crust with the same concave circles that Saaya had when taking the buns from her father. 

Saaya was trying her hardest to give Moca and the customer equal attention but as Moca bit into the curry bun and her expression shifted with a single bite, Saaya’s vision plummeted down a deep, dark tunnel. Moca’s whole face lit up in cannon; first her eyebrows began to raise towards her hairline, then her cheeks puffed out, pulling the corners of her mouth upward with them. Moca’s cheeks were quaking slightly as she savoured every mouthful. 

Moca had explained her bun-tasting ‘process’ to Saaya once before and although she had originally laughed it off as one of Moca’s many eccentricities, watching her in that moment made Saaya reconsider her original judgement. Every muscle on Moca’s face shifted in exultation, her eyes squeezing shut as she swayed her head from side-to-side. When she had swallowed her first mouthful, Moca’s eyes blinked open as though awakening from a deep slumber and she met Saaya’s gaze, beaming as she did. Saaya turned to attend to the other customer walking around the shop.

Saaya had known Moca for a long time. They were the same age and had any number of interactions both inside the confines of Yamabuki Bakery and elsewhere. They even hung out occasionally, just the two of them. So why was it that suddenly Saaya was left completely untethered every time she looked at Moca? Something had shifted that morning and Saaya was now looking at Moca in a newfound light. She had to shake the odd mood she had put herself in. Saaya had a long day of work ahead of her. If she spent every second with her head stuffed with cotton wool, and her thoughts occupied with someone who was certainly just her friend, then Saaya wasn’t sure how she’d make it to the end of her shift.

She brought the other customer round to the till to ring up their transaction, smiling along with the script she was oh-so-familiar with, thanking them for their patronage and bagging their bun tidily into a little paper bag. Saaya survived the interaction but the light-headedness that had struck her earlier had not dispersed. As Saaya was thinking up ways to get herself back on track, Moca’s voice broke through her reverie.

“Saaya, I’m so sorry, but I have to head off now. I want to prove to everyone that even I can be get up early on weekends,” Moca’s expression deflated momentarily. “So I guess this is goodbye, dear Yamabuki Bakery.”

“What are you saying? You know you’ll be back.” Saaya said. Her heart was racing, and wasn’t it still far too warm inside the shop?

“Hehe, you’re right as always! Maybe I’ll even be back after rehearsal, I can’t go too long without coming here after all,” Moca raised one hand and waved lazily as she headed for the door. “Thanks for the food, Saaya! I’ll see you around, ok?”

It was like at the end of a live when the house lights came up to end the magic of the concert and send everyone home. Saaya loved lives. The atmosphere as she played alongside everyone made each performance into its own isolated universe. Saaya tried to ground herself in those moments but it was hard not to wonder what it would be like if she could indulge in her little fantasy world far past the music ended. Moca had entered the bakery that morning and brought with her a world that was just for the two of them. Even a relatively mundane action between the two of them had been completely altered because of it. Saaya wanted more, greedily, she wanted to collect every piece of ordinary happiness that she had with Moca, past, present, and future, and stretch them all out into eternity. Saaya could feel a wave of nausea building in her stomach as Moca put her hand on the door and began to pull it inwards. It rushed up from her stomach and into her throat, twisting with her pounding heartbeat and filling her head with its erratic counts. 

The live was ending. Saaya was losing her grip on her drumsticks. They were slipping from her fingers. She had to do something.

“Moca!” Saaya called out, her voice edged with desperation.

Moca turned around, tilting her head quizzically. 

“I-I know I said earlier that you can call me whenever you want to talk but, is it ok if I call you tonight?” Saaya blurted out the question before it could be drowned in the roaring tide of her pulse. She swallowed to combat the nausea that was still pressing incessantly against the back of her throat and continued. “I want to ask you about an idea I had for a new type of bun for the bakery. I’m not sure if it’s a good fit for us or not, and as our best customer I was sure you’d be able to help.”

“Oh? Is this a secret recipe?” Moca gasped. “Am I really on my way to becoming a Yamabuki now?”

There it was again. That insinuation that had thrown off Saaya before. She reeled in her spinning thoughts and shot them down with logic; quick-fire, rapid facts to dowse the kindling flame in her chest. Moca wanted to join the family because she loved the bakery. Moca loved backed goods more than anything and she loved Yamabuki Bakery’s the most out of these. By joining the family she probably meant that she wanted to be adopted into it. There was no way Moca was talking about marriage, or anything.

“I can’t wait to become Yamabuki Moca! Saaya, treat me kindly, won’t you?” As the words left Moca’s mouth she winked conspiratorially at Saaya and then with a laugh as clear as a chiming bell, Moca let herself out of the shop. Saaya didn’t move for a long while after Moca left, and when she did, she went straight to ask her father if she could have the rest of the day off. She thought she might have a fever coming on.

Saaya climbed the stairs up to her room and collapsed into bed. Hugging her pillow tight to her chest, Saaya desperately tried to get the image of Moca in a suit waiting for her at the front of a church out of her mind.

Yamabuki Moca, huh?


End file.
